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Another huge step for Giroptic! Following a $1.4 million Kickstarter campaign in 2014, the most successful ever for a French company, Giroptic announced on December 15th, a $4.5M Seed Funding round led by Partech Ventures, along with contributions from 360 Capital, Pascal Cagni Founder & CEO of C4 Ventures, SOSV, Finorpa, Oleg Tscheltzoff and singer Aloe Blacc.

The ubi i/o team is thrilled to relay this news, as it brings the total amount of money raised by our alumni consequently to the program to $45M, Giroptic being one of the 8 15′ ubi i/o participants. It is also an additional reason (if we needed one) to involve more Transatlantic Tech VC funds in our acceleration program. For this year’s program, Partech Ventures, alongside Idinvest Partners and Bpifrance Ventures, will award one of the 16′ ubi i/o participant with a $1 million seed investment.

Giroptic designs and manufactures a rugged egg-shaped 360cam, capturing the world up, down and all around you. It is the first of its kind to stitch the images from 3 sensors in real time, sparing you hours of post processing, allowing you to adjust and preview your settings in real time, and even livestream 360° HD videos, of your own on-stage performances.

During ubi i/o, our team supported Giroptic on three critical points, in order to accelerate their U.S. development:

All along the 10 weeks of the program, Giroptic also had the opportunity to attend some of the best pitching events of Silicon Valley even winning some of them in the process such as the IoT World! It should be expected as we spent a large amount of time before the beginning of the program working on the startups’ pitch:

“The most lightning progression we made was on the “pitch” exercise. It’s the first topic tackled, and probably the most structuring one of the whole program” Marian Le Calvez, COO @Giroptic

The very next big thing for Giroptic will be CES 2016, where we’re are impatient to see them again, in the Virtual Reality space of course!

Last year, GIROPTIC broke the record for the largest French Kickstarter campaign, securing $1.4M in only 45 days. They exceeded their goal of $150K by more than nine times. GIROPTIC has already received various awards, including Best of CES ‘15 Honoree – Digital Imaging , and Best of CES ‘15 Honoree – Smart Home .

From disposable cameras to handhelds and now camera phones, the next step in the video world is virtual reality, the sensation of being present at an event instead of observing it through framed images. 360Cam, with its three wide-angle lenses, three internal microphones, and seamless image fusion technology allows for an immersive virtual reality experience already being supported on platforms such as Youtube and Facebook, and virtual reality headsets like the Oculus Rift.

Rugged, waterproof, and compact, this 360° action camera can record videos and take photos, both live and in time-lapse, with no additional editing required for the output. 360Cam can provide an element of home security through its video streaming feature, connect offices during transcontinental meetings, or be used in any number of situations. Equipped with goggles, to prevent damaging light diffraction while under water, and the ability to screw into a light socket, effectively powering the device, 360Cam is made to adapt to any needs and lifestyle with ease. The camera is available for $499 and will start shipping to early backers this month.

“The 360Cam totally changes the way people record, upload, share and visualize video memories. With no post-processing and live streaming to tablets and VR headsets, as well as to native Facebook and YouTube feeds, the immersion is surreal and a single movie can be watched hundreds of time without seeing the same thing,” said Romain Lavault, Partner at Partech Ventures. “Over the last two years of scouting this emerging market in both Silicon Valley and Europe, the Giroptic team is the absolute best we have found in that emerging field. We are determined to help them become the undisputed leader of 360/VR consumer video.”

“We funded GIROPTIC seven years ago on a simple but bold idea. Photos and videos should be as immersive, absolute, and natural as reality itself,” said GIROPTIC Co-Founder and CEO, Richard Ollier. “This funding will allow us to bring our product to market faster and continue to advance our technology further.”

About GIROPTIC

GIROPTIC, based in Lille, France, with an office in San Francisco, USA, specializes in 360° imaging technology. After six years of research and development and four generations of products, GIROPTIC has developed and patented a unique real-time image fusion process from multiple sensors. On May 20th 2014, GIROPTIC launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund its first consumer product: the GIROPTIC 360cam. In 45 days, the startup raised over $1.4 million, becoming France’s largest crowdfunding campaign.

GIROPTIC paves the way to a new 360° era, for consumers and professionals, where photos and videos won’t be limited to a single frame.

For more information on GIROPTIC, visit http://GIROPTIC.com and http://360.tv

About Partech Ventures

Partech Ventures is an investor focused on high growth companies in the digital and information technology fields. It manages seed (Partech Entrepreneur), venture (Partech International) and growth capital funds (Partech Growth). Located in the Silicon Valley, Paris and Berlin, the Partech team has extensive experience in the international development of companies. Throughout its history, Partech Ventures portfolio companies have completed 21 initial public offerings and more than 50 M&A transactions with major international companies at values in excess of $100M. Preqin, an independent global research firm, has acknowledged Partech Ventures as one of the ten best performing venture capital funds in the world and the only European fund in the top 25.

About 360 Capital Partners

360 Capital Partners is a multi-stage venture capital firm, growing companies from seed stage to exit. The firms currently has over 300M€ under management, and invests in France, in Italy and across Europe from its offices in Paris, Milan and Berlin.

About SOSV

SOSV has an extraordinary track record of investment returns since 1995. SOSV investment partners have created world-leading trends, and have a track record of investing in exceptional companies with major new ground-breaking inventions at the earliest stages. Additionally, no other VC or accelerator offers SOSV’s range of business coaching, market development support, and financial outcome follow-up and follow-through.

With investments on six continents, SOSV’s geographic reach is unparalleled amongst early-stage VCs with less than $1 billion under management.

SOSV, through its dedication and proven capability to shape the global startup infrastructure, is building the next generation of startups and transforming how technology influences the way we interact with the world. SOSV backs founders who make the impossible inevitable.

About C4 Ventures

C4 Ventures is a new breed of Venture Capital firm that invests in early stage (Seed or Series A) startups based in Europe and later stage startups seeking to expand into European markets. Created by Pascal Cagni VP & GM Apple Europe, Middle East, India, Africa (EMEIA) 2000-2012, C4 Ventures focuses its investments on three verticals ‘Future of Hardware’, ‘Future of Commerce’ and ‘Future of Media’. By providing financial support along with operational expertise, C4 Ventures helps entrepreneurs bring their innovative ideas to life. For more information, visit www.c4v.com or follow C4 Ventures on Twitter: @c4ventures

About Finorpa

The Finorpa group is the main investor in equity and quasi-equity in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. An investment capacity of about €20M every year is available through two investment vehicles:

– Finorpa SCR invests in equity in SMB; it is active in seed capital but also in growth capital and LBO. Finorpa SCR has invested in 160 companies and manages about €60M.

– Finorpa PP invests in quasi-equity through loans or securities in local SMB. With a portfolio of more than 200 companies, Finorpa PP manages an asset of more than €30M. Each vehicle can invest on its own or together with another tool of the group; it can also co-invest with other, national or local, investment fund.

About Oleg Tscheltzoff, Founder and CEO, Fotolia.com

As an entrepreneur, Oleg Tscheltzoff has leveraged a global vision and knowledge of international business, management and marketing to develop successful online businesses. Oleg founded Fotolia.com, a leading marketplace for creative digital stock images . He led the company from inception to its rapid rise to the world’s largest microstock site. Fotolia was acquired by Adobe in 2015.

Oleg is also a successful angel investor, board member, innovator, disruptor, and connector with over 40 investments in startups such as Leetchi, Birchbox, Delivery Hero, Seal-software, businessoffashion, and more.

He graduated with an MS from ENSIEG in Grenoble, France and an MBA from HEC Paris. He is fluent in French, English and Russian.

About Aloe Blacc

Aloe Blacc is an American hip hop artist, vocalist, songwriter, actor, record producer, businessman and musician. He is best known for his singles “I Need a Dollar”, UK No. 1 single “The Man”, and for writing and performing vocals on Avicii’s “Wake Me Up”, which charted at #1 in 22 countries.

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